+1 for Arch Linux. I like choosing my own programs instead of getting a plethora of software that I'll never use. I've become very accustomed to ratpoison for the WM. I can't stand using other computers where I have to drag windows around, resizing is a pain, etc. It gives me a nice perspective to the desktop scene too. Whenever an article comes up about Ubuntu or gnome or whatever, it makes me glad I don't have to deal with all that garbage.
I have an iPhone - wait for it - without a contract. It's on AT&T's GoPhone style pay as you go service.
So once you get past the initial hardware, which then comes down to a typical hardware decision, I get all the fun of a smartphone in places with wifi (work and McDonalds!) but all the low expenses of a prepaid-as-you-go plan.
$100 in phone service lasts me about 4 months.
That's the direction I've been figuring I'd go. T-mobile allows you to have a smart phone and buy a week or month of connectivity as you go, sans contract. It looks attractive.
I also may do this. I need to research smart phones (I've never had one, and it seems like a fairly daunting task actually), but once I find an unlocked one that I like, I'll just buy a $5 sim card from t-mobile and get one of the no contract plans. I think I'll be going with $15/mo for unlimited texting and 10 cents/minute of talking, since I hardly ever call with my current phone (prepaid on verizon). It doesn't come with data connection, but I'm usually in range of wifi.
I'll admit that I'm not a gamer (college does that to you), but it seems like some people are too caught up in having the latest, most expensive graphics card/sound card/CPU/whatever. Do high end graphics, sound, etc. really make gaming more enjoyable? One of the most enjoyable games I played was Ocarina of Time, which was quite old at the time, as it was the downloadable version on the wii. Perhaps I have a different mindset then others, but I like those types of games a lot more than FPSes. The graphics are nice, but they don't do a lot for me.
To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.
"Combating the theft of U.S. property"...honestly? The words "theft" and "property" are HUGE red flags that these people have no clue what they are talking about.
true. Let me ammend my comment: But there isn't a good alternative for me. I took a look at the archos devices a while ago, but from what I remember they were a bit sub-standard (for me, again). I can't remember any other specific android devices, but I searched for a long time and couldn't find anything. I've been waiting for the galaxy s wifi 3.6/4.0/5.0 to be released in the US though, they look really promising.
I'd be happy to get something else, if there was a good alternative to the ipod touch. But there isn't.
Furthermore, I wouldn't exactly call it crippled crap. Sure, I hate a lot of the things Apple has done to make it more closed, but it's far from crippled.
Good point. Interestingly, my dad apparently had the teacher from hell in 3rd grade. He says it's (negatively) affected his whole life, which seemed a little hard to believe at first, but not so much after hearing some stories about her (the teacher). He's a successful engineer now though, so I suppose it didn't affect him too much.
Well said. It's important to be able to type fast enough that your thinking isn't inhibited by your input skills, but beyond that, there's not much point. Whatever that speed is would depend on whatever you're doing, but I'd say it's probably in the range of 30-60 WPM. I practice typing every day or so to increase my speed, but only because I enjoy it. I never type at my maximum speed when I'm programming or writing.
Dvorak and other optimized layouts only buy you around a 10% increase in speed.
That may be true (I've never personally looked into it), but how does that make it irrelevant? We're talking about nerds here. For some people (including myself), the fact that Dvorak offers any advantage at all is enough of a reason to learn it. Yes, many/most people may not care enough to spend the initial effort to learn a new layout (and then have the difficulty of using a non-standard layout), but that doesn't make it irrelevant.
Furthermore, speed isn't, in my opinion, the main advantage of Dvorak anyway. I've found that the added comfort and accuracy are much more important. I remember back in the days of being a QWERTY typist that my hands would sometimes start to ache. It wasn't much of a problem at all, but I'm young, and it may have become an issue down the road. I switched to Dvorak last December, and although I'm typing much, much more, my hands never hurt. I can't attest as well to the accuracy benefits (seeing as I've never been fluent in QWERTY and Dvorak at the same time-- I never use QWERTY anymore), but there seems to have been an increase.
I have an ipod touch (don't have money for a smart phone, no real
alternatives that I've seen) and it hardly "just works" for me. I've jailbroken
it, and I don't know how people can stand to live without the features I've
added to mine. I use a case with a cover, so the lock screen is pointless for
me. Turns out there's a cydia app to get rid of the lock screen. I thought it
was a pain to take it out of my pocket, unlock it (before I jailbroke), and open
the music app just to pause a song. With Activator, I can pause the music by
holding down one of the volume buttons. There are tons of small enhancements
like this that would drive me crazy if I didn't have them anymore.
By the way, is Android really as great as it sounds? I'm waiting for Samsung
to release their PMPs in the US, it seems like it's taking them forever to do it
though.
At first I thought that somehow history was caught stealing something by an advertising network. It took me a minute to realize the title actually meant "stealing history". If the used word order is really that important, the submitter could've at least thrown a hyphen in there to make it a bit clearer.
My understanding is that Real Geeks preferred the term "hacker" anyway.
And about intelligence. How exactly do you define it? I think many people may
get the term "intelligence" confused with "knowledge". Knowledge, of course, is
the sum of all the information you've assimilated. Intelligence, in my opinion,
is how quickly/easily you are able to gain more knowledge. You might compare
this to a car, where intelligence == acceleration and knowledge == velocity.
Thus, a teenager with no drive (no pun intended) could be very intelligent, and
yet still know nothing (if he doesn't bother pushing down on the metaphorical
gas pedal). Of course, this probably is only a good description for a "normal"
person, as autistic savants can assimilate tons of knowledge and yet are unable
to perform basic everyday tasks. Whether or not they should be considered
"intelligent" is left as an exercise for the reader.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 for Arch Linux. I like choosing my own programs instead of getting a plethora of software that I'll never use. I've become very accustomed to ratpoison for the WM. I can't stand using other computers where I have to drag windows around, resizing is a pain, etc. It gives me a nice perspective to the desktop scene too. Whenever an article comes up about Ubuntu or gnome or whatever, it makes me glad I don't have to deal with all that garbage.
I have an iPhone - wait for it - without a contract. It's on AT&T's GoPhone style pay as you go service.
So once you get past the initial hardware, which then comes down to a typical hardware decision, I get all the fun of a smartphone in places with wifi (work and McDonalds!) but all the low expenses of a prepaid-as-you-go plan.
$100 in phone service lasts me about 4 months.
That's the direction I've been figuring I'd go. T-mobile allows you to have a smart phone and buy a week or month of connectivity as you go, sans contract. It looks attractive.
I also may do this. I need to research smart phones (I've never had one, and it seems like a fairly daunting task actually), but once I find an unlocked one that I like, I'll just buy a $5 sim card from t-mobile and get one of the no contract plans. I think I'll be going with $15/mo for unlimited texting and 10 cents/minute of talking, since I hardly ever call with my current phone (prepaid on verizon). It doesn't come with data connection, but I'm usually in range of wifi.
FTFY
I almost wanted to mod you as a troll for a second there. Almost.
I'll admit that I'm not a gamer (college does that to you), but it seems like some people are too caught up in having the latest, most expensive graphics card/sound card/CPU/whatever. Do high end graphics, sound, etc. really make gaming more enjoyable? One of the most enjoyable games I played was Ocarina of Time, which was quite old at the time, as it was the downloadable version on the wii. Perhaps I have a different mindset then others, but I like those types of games a lot more than FPSes. The graphics are nice, but they don't do a lot for me.
To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.
"Combating the theft of U.S. property"...honestly? The words "theft" and "property" are HUGE red flags that these people have no clue what they are talking about.
That's what caught my eye.
See? If you hadn't included your name, your comment wouldn't have stretched to more than one page.
Oh give the guy a break. He just wrote the best comment in this discussion, and you had to complain about including his name at the end?
oh my gosh... somebody mod this up!
All the better to make sure your driving safe dearie!
And we give you apostrophes for clearer communication... Dearie.
Ubuntu, Mint != every single iteration of Linux. If you think they're too confusing, find a better distro. I use Arch myself.
From Paul Graham's website:
Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
Abelson & Sussman, SICP, preface to the first edition
my boyfriend
I archive all the bachelor parties that I perform at
---
You can tell he's a coder
Also note the GP's username and sig.
first post! first time for me :)
Is that you, grub?
Rubbing styrofoam does it for me. I can barely stand just thinking about it.
true. Let me ammend my comment: But there isn't a good alternative for me. I took a look at the archos devices a while ago, but from what I remember they were a bit sub-standard (for me, again). I can't remember any other specific android devices, but I searched for a long time and couldn't find anything. I've been waiting for the galaxy s wifi 3.6/4.0/5.0 to be released in the US though, they look really promising.
I'd be happy to get something else, if there was a good alternative to the ipod touch. But there isn't.
Furthermore, I wouldn't exactly call it crippled crap. Sure, I hate a lot of the things Apple has done to make it more closed, but it's far from crippled.
Good point. Interestingly, my dad apparently had the teacher from hell in 3rd grade. He says it's (negatively) affected his whole life, which seemed a little hard to believe at first, but not so much after hearing some stories about her (the teacher). He's a successful engineer now though, so I suppose it didn't affect him too much.
Somebody please mod this up. I have no idea how the GP got +4: informative.
Well said. It's important to be able to type fast enough that your thinking isn't inhibited by your input skills, but beyond that, there's not much point. Whatever that speed is would depend on whatever you're doing, but I'd say it's probably in the range of 30-60 WPM. I practice typing every day or so to increase my speed, but only because I enjoy it. I never type at my maximum speed when I'm programming or writing.
Dvorak and other optimized layouts only buy you around a 10% increase in speed.
That may be true (I've never personally looked into it), but how does that make it irrelevant? We're talking about nerds here. For some people (including myself), the fact that Dvorak offers any advantage at all is enough of a reason to learn it. Yes, many/most people may not care enough to spend the initial effort to learn a new layout (and then have the difficulty of using a non-standard layout), but that doesn't make it irrelevant.
Furthermore, speed isn't, in my opinion, the main advantage of Dvorak anyway. I've found that the added comfort and accuracy are much more important. I remember back in the days of being a QWERTY typist that my hands would sometimes start to ache. It wasn't much of a problem at all, but I'm young, and it may have become an issue down the road. I switched to Dvorak last December, and although I'm typing much, much more, my hands never hurt. I can't attest as well to the accuracy benefits (seeing as I've never been fluent in QWERTY and Dvorak at the same time-- I never use QWERTY anymore), but there seems to have been an increase.
Exactly! Thank you for posting that.
I have an ipod touch (don't have money for a smart phone, no real alternatives that I've seen) and it hardly "just works" for me. I've jailbroken it, and I don't know how people can stand to live without the features I've added to mine. I use a case with a cover, so the lock screen is pointless for me. Turns out there's a cydia app to get rid of the lock screen. I thought it was a pain to take it out of my pocket, unlock it (before I jailbroke), and open the music app just to pause a song. With Activator, I can pause the music by holding down one of the volume buttons. There are tons of small enhancements like this that would drive me crazy if I didn't have them anymore.
By the way, is Android really as great as it sounds? I'm waiting for Samsung to release their PMPs in the US, it seems like it's taking them forever to do it though.
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-10-02/
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-10-04/
At first I thought that somehow history was caught stealing something by an advertising network. It took me a minute to realize the title actually meant "stealing history". If the used word order is really that important, the submitter could've at least thrown a hyphen in there to make it a bit clearer.
why would anyone want to help mumbai attack the victims? if anything, they should be trying to stop mumbai from attacking!
My understanding is that Real Geeks preferred the term "hacker" anyway.
And about intelligence. How exactly do you define it? I think many people may get the term "intelligence" confused with "knowledge". Knowledge, of course, is the sum of all the information you've assimilated. Intelligence, in my opinion, is how quickly/easily you are able to gain more knowledge. You might compare this to a car, where intelligence == acceleration and knowledge == velocity. Thus, a teenager with no drive (no pun intended) could be very intelligent, and yet still know nothing (if he doesn't bother pushing down on the metaphorical gas pedal). Of course, this probably is only a good description for a "normal" person, as autistic savants can assimilate tons of knowledge and yet are unable to perform basic everyday tasks. Whether or not they should be considered "intelligent" is left as an exercise for the reader.